UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK HAMID

33 Pages·2013·0.26 MB·English

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
HAMID HASSAN RAZA; MASJID AL-ANSAR;
ASAD DANDIA; MUSLIMS GIVING BACK;
MASJID AT-TAQWA; MOHAMMAD ELSHINAWY, ECFCASE
Plaintiffs,
COMPL~ANLON
, MaJ.
v.
Case No.
-----
CITY OF NEW YORK; MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG,
in his official capacity as Mayor ofthe City of New Hon.
-----~
Y ork; RAYMOND W. KELLY, in his official capacity
as Police Commissioner for the City of New York;
c.::t
DAVID COHEN, in his official capacity as Deputy
Commissioner of Intelligence for the City ofNe w York,
Defendants.
INTRODUCTION
1. Since 2002, the New York City Police Department ("NYPD") has engaged in an
unlawful policy and practice of religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance of Muslim New
Yorkers. This policy and practice has a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious
belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny.
2. As documented extensively in the NYPD's own records, its Intelligence Division
has singled out Muslim religious and community leaders, mosques, organizations, businesses,
and individuals for pervasive surveillance that is not visited upon the public at large or upon
institutions or individuals belonging to any other religious faith. That surveillance has included
the mapping of Muslim communities and their religious, educational, and social institutions and
businesses in New York City (and beyond); deploying NYPD officers and informants to
infiltrate mosques and monitor the' conversations of congregants and religious leaders without
any suspicion of wrongdoing; and conducting other forms of suspicionless surveillance of
Muslim individuals, organizations, and institutions, including through the use of informants and
monitoring of web sites, blogs, and other online forums. Infonnation collected from these
activities has been entered into intelligence databases. According to the commanding officer of
the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, its mapping activities have not generated a single lead, nor led
to a single terrorism investigation.
3. The unlawful policy and practice that these activities reflect are referred to here as
the NYPD’s “Muslim Surveillance Program.” Through the Muslim Surveillance Program, the
NYPD has imposed an unwarranted badge of suspicion and stigma on law-abiding Muslim New
Yorkers, including Plaintiffs in this action.
4. Plaintiffs are Muslim New Yorkers—religious and community leaders, mosques,
and a charitable organization—caught in the dragnet of the NYPD’s sweeping Muslim
Surveillance Program. Among other violations, Plaintiffs have been variously subjected to
unlawful surveillance by NYPD informants, videocameras, and plainclothes officers, all based
on their religion and without any evidence of wrongdoing.
5. As a result of unlawful NYPD spying, each of the Plaintiffs’ religious goals,
missions, and practices have been profoundly harmed. For example, Plaintiffs who are religious
leaders and mosques have curtailed the religious and personal guidance that they provide to
congregants for fear that this guidance might be misconstrued by NYPD officers or informants,
resulting in additional unjustified scrutiny, or worse. Religious leaders and mosques have also
had to record sermons for fear that NYPD officers or informants will take their statements out of
context, or accuse them of saying things that they did not say. Plaintiff religious leaders’
ministry, expression, and study have been significantly chilled. Knowledge and justifiable fear
of NYPD surveillance have diminished congregants’ attendance at the Plaintiff mosques,
prompted distrust of newcomers out of concern that they are NYPD informants, and prevented
the mosques from fulfilling their mission of serving as religious sanctuaries. Knowledge and
justifiable fear of NYPD surveillance have also diminished the ability of a Plaintiff charity and
one of its leaders to raise funds, and interfered with their mission of promoting and providing
charity to needy New Yorkers in fulfillment of one of Islam’s primary tenets.
6. Through this action, Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the NYPD’s policy and
practice of subjecting them to suspicionless surveillance because of their Muslim faith violates
their fundamental rights to equal protection and free exercise of religion under the U.S.
Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New York, and the guarantee of government
neutrality toward all religions under the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiffs also seek an injunction
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against the continuation of the NYPD’s unconstitutional policy and practice, and an order
requiring the NYPD to destroy the information about them that it has secretly collected in
violation of their constitutional rights.
JURISDICTION & VENUE
7. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 42
U.S.C. § 1983 because this lawsuit alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution and raises
questions of federal law. Jurisdiction is also based upon 28 U.S.C. § 1343 because the lawsuit
seeks relief for the deprivation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights under color of state law.
8. This Court has the authority to grant declaratory and injunctive relief, and any
other appropriate relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, 2201, and 2202. A substantial,
actual, and continuing controversy exists between the parties with respect to the Plaintiffs’
claims for declaratory and injunctive relief.
9. Venue is proper in the Eastern District of New York under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)
because a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claims occurred in this
District.
PARTIES
10. Plaintiff Hamid Hassan Raza is a U.S. citizen who is a resident of Brooklyn, New
York, with his wife and child. He serves as imam at Masjid Al-Ansar, where his duties include
leading daily prayer services, conducting religious educational classes for the mosque
community and especially its youth, and providing spiritual and personal counseling to
congregants. Since at least 2008, Imam Raza has been subject to NYPD surveillance.
11. Plaintiff Masjid Al-Ansar is a Muslim house of worship founded in 2008 and
located at 2230 Bath Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. It is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization
under the name Al-Ansar Center, Inc. In addition to holding daily prayer services, Masjid Al-
Ansar provides religious education and counseling to its congregants and seeks to foster an
inclusive religious community, especially for youth. Since at least 2008, Masjid Al-Ansar has
been subject to NYPD surveillance.
12. Plaintiff Asad (“Ace”) Dandia is a twenty-year-old U.S. citizen who is a resident
of Brooklyn, New York. He is a sophomore at a City University of New York community
college, studying liberal arts. He aims to become a social worker. Plaintiff Dandia is a
practicing Muslim. He is a co-founder and Vice President of Muslims Giving Back, a charitable
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organization. Since at least March 2012, Plaintiff Dandia has been subject to NYPD
surveillance.
13. Plaintiff Muslims Giving Back is a New York organization that promotes and
engages in charitable activities in furtherance of Islam’s central tenet of charity and assistance to
the needy. It also conducts outreach and awareness raising about Islam. Muslims Giving Back
collects donations from its members and community members, which it uses to provide food and
other assistance to low-income individuals in New York City. Muslims Giving Back was
formerly known as Fesabeelillah Services of NYC, Inc. (“FSNYC”), which is registered as a
501(c)(3) organization. Since at least March 2012, Muslims Giving Back has been subject to
NYPD surveillance.
14. Plaintiff Masjid At-Taqwa is a Muslim house of worship founded in 1981 and
located at 1266 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. It is incorporated under the name
Masjid At-Taqwa, Inc. In addition to holding daily prayer services, Masjid At-Taqwa provides
religious education and counseling to its congregants and seeks to foster an inclusive religious
community. Since at least 2004, Masjid At-Taqwa has been subject to NYPD surveillance.
15. Plaintiff Mohammad Elshinawy is a U.S. citizen who is a resident of Brooklyn,
New York, with his wife and two children. Mr. Elshinawy is a practicing Muslim. For
approximately eleven years, he has taught and lectured about Islam, giving sermons and teaching
classes at various Muslim institutions in New York City. Since at least 2004, Mr. Elshinawy has
been subject to NYPD surveillance.
16. Defendant City of New York (“the City”) is a municipal corporation duly
incorporated and existing under the laws of the State of New York. The City of New York has
established and maintains the NYPD as a constituent department of the City. At all relevant
times, the City, acting through the NYPD, was responsible for the policy, practice, supervision,
implementation, and conduct of all NYPD matters and was responsible for the appointment,
training, supervision, and conduct of all NYPD personnel. In addition, at all relevant times, the
City was responsible for ensuring that NYPD personnel obey the laws of the United States and
New York State.
17. Defendant Michael R. Bloomberg is the Mayor of the City of New York, with
supervisory authority over the NYPD. He is sued here in his official capacity.
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18. Defendant Raymond W. Kelly is the Police Commissioner for the City of New
York, with supervisory authority over all officers and operations of the NYPD, including
responsibility for training, recruiting, and managing all members of the NYPD Intelligence
Division. He is sued here in his official capacity.
19. Defendant David Cohen is the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence for the City
of New York, with supervisory authority over the NYPD’s Intelligence Division. In that role,
Defendant Cohen oversees the gathering, analysis, and distribution of intelligence, and is
responsible for training, recruiting, and managing all members of the NYPD Intelligence
Division. He is sued here in his official capacity.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
A. The NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program

20. Since at least 2002, the NYPD has conducted its Muslim Surveillance Program
through its Intelligence Division, which currently includes, or previously included: (1) the
Demographics Unit (which was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit in 2010); (2) the Intelligence
Analysis Unit; (3) the Cyber Intelligence Unit; and (4) the Terrorist Interdiction Unit.
21. The NYPD developed its Muslim Surveillance Program under the leadership of
David Cohen, a retired thirty-five-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, who became
the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence in 2002.
22. The analytic underpinnings of the Muslim Surveillance Program are reflected in a
2007 report titled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” written by two senior
analysts in the NYPD Intelligence Division, and published by the NYPD (the “NYPD
Radicalization Report”). The NYPD Radicalization Report claims to identify a linear, four-stage
“radicalization process” by which individuals transform into terrorists. The process laid out in
the NYPD Radicalization Report draws a broad profile and treats with suspicion those who
identify as Muslim, harbor Islamic beliefs, and/or engage in Islamic practices.
23. According to the NYPD Radicalization Report, “[e]nclaves of ethnic populations
that are largely Muslim often serve as ‘ideological sanctuaries’ for the seeds of radical thought.”
Within these “Muslim enclaves,” the report claims that potential terrorists could range from
members of middle-class families to “successful college students, the unemployed, the second
and third generation, new immigrants, petty criminals, and prison parolees.” It identifies as so-
called “radicalization incubators” places frequented by Muslims, including mosques, “cafes, cab
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driver hangouts, flophouses, . . . student associations, nongovernmental organizations, hookah
(water pipe) bars, butcher shops and book stores.” It also purports to identify as radicalization
“indicators” First Amendment-protected activities in which many, if not most, religious Muslims
participate—including “wearing traditional Islamic clothing [and] growing a beard,” abstaining
from alcohol, and “becoming involved in social activism and community issues.”
24. The NYPD Radicalization Report stigmatizes an entire faith community and
invites discrimination. It specifically singles out Muslims for profiling and suspicionless
surveillance because of their religious beliefs and practices. Although the NYPD claimed in
2009 that its Radicalization Report “was not intended to be policy prescriptive,” upon
information and belief, the NYPD Intelligence Division continues to conduct suspicionless
surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers in accordance with the framework set out in the report.
25. The NYPD’s own documents show that, beginning in at least 2003, the
Intelligence Division carried out the Muslim Surveillance Program by identifying, locating, and
mapping Muslim New Yorkers based on a list of “ancestries of interest.” The NYPD used U.S.
census data and information from I-9 immigration forms and government databases to locate
significant Muslim populations within New York communities associated with these “ancestries
of interest.”
26. The “ancestries of interest” include “American Black Muslims” and twenty-eight
countries or regions that represent eighty percent of the global Muslim population: Afghanistan,
Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Chechnya, Egypt, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Yugoslavia. All but three
of these countries or regions have majority Muslim populations. One of those remaining three
countries—India—is home to eleven percent of the world’s Muslim population.
27. The NYPD’s mapping efforts specifically excluded non-Muslims from law
enforcement scrutiny. For example, the Intelligence Division’s Demographics Unit mapped
Iranian community institutions in one NYPD document, but specifically noted when those
persons and institutions were Jewish or Christian—not Muslim—and therefore not of interest to
the NYPD. In a report mapping the Egyptian community in 2007, the NYPD noted that Coptic
Christian Egyptians were “the majority of the Egyptian community in New York City. This
report does not represent the Coptic Egyptian community and is merely an insight into the
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Muslim Egyptian community of New York City.” Similarly, in its 2007 map of the Syrian
community in New York City, the NYPD stated that the community is “divided into two parts, a
Jewish Syrian and a Muslim Syrian community with the Jewish community being the larger of
the two. This report will focus on the smaller Muslim community.” Although the NYPD
acknowledged the religious diversity in New York’s Albanian population, police officials only
mapped and photographed Albanian mosques for the NYPD’s Demographics Report on
Albanians.
28. The NYPD further identified at least 263 so-called “hot spots”—such as cafés,
bookstores, and restaurants—owned or frequented by Muslims.
29. The NYPD dispatched teams of plainclothes officers known as “rakers” into
neighborhoods with concentrated communities associated with Muslim “ancestries of interest” to
monitor daily life in those communities. In addition, the NYPD has engaged informants to
conduct suspicionless surveillance of Muslims. So-called “seeded” informants work or reside in
certain ethnic neighborhoods and report to the police on neighborhood happenings. “Directed”
informants gather information from locations that rakers have identified as “hot spots,”
notwithstanding the absence of any indication of criminal activity.
30. Although the NYPD’s dragnet Muslim Surveillance Program has swept up
Muslims as a faith community, specific Muslim individuals, organizations and groups have been
further singled out by the NYPD because of real or perceived stronger devotion to their faith or
to particular Islamic beliefs. For example, the NYPD sent officers and informants to spy on “hot
spots” that were particularly identified as having “‘devout clientele.’” In addition, the NYPD has
targeted individuals and mosques that it identified as having “ties to Salafism.” The NYPD
defined Salafi in its Radicalization Report as “a Sunni revivalist school of thought that takes the
pious ancestors of the early period of early Islam as exemplary models.” The NYPD has also
singled out for suspicionless surveillance Muslim religious institutions and leaders it perceives as
particularly influential in the community.
31. Among the institutions on which the NYPD has specifically focused its
suspicionless surveillance are mosques, which are central to Muslim religious life. The NYPD
identified and mapped more than 250 area mosques in New York and neighboring states. NYPD
officials then determined the “ethnic orientation, leadership, and group affiliations” of each
mosque, either by surveilling it from the outside, or by entering the mosque to make those
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determinations. Using rakers and informants, the NYPD identified fifty-three “mosques of
concern” in which the Department placed additional informants and plainclothes officers.
32. The NYPD has placed video cameras outside of mosques to surveil congregants
and collected license plate numbers of worshippers attending certain mosques, without any
suspicion of criminal activity.
33. Upon information and belief, Defendant Cohen intended to place an NYPD
source in every mosque within a 250-mile radius of New York City and succeeded in placing a
source in many of them.
34. The NYPD has instructed its officers and informants to spy on and record the
First Amendment-protected speech and activities of Muslim religious and community leaders
and members, including students and activists. Informants known informally as “mosque
crawlers” are specifically dispatched to monitor sermons, scrutinize imams, record
conversations, and collect lists of mosque attendees, all absent evidence of wrongdoing. The
NYPD’s own documents show that informants have recorded conversations among mosque
congregants about current events, such as the Danish cartoon controversy in early 2006 and the
accidental crash of a plane into a Manhattan building in October 2006.
35. The NYPD’s mapping activities and its use of officers and informants to monitor
and record Muslim New Yorkers’ conversations without any suspicion of wrongdoing continue.
According to the current commanding officer of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, members of
the Division may be instructed to record and report on Muslim New Yorkers’ conversations to
determine whether they are “upset” about world events, such as “a drone attack,” or discussing
information that would “identify what region or what type of people they are.”
36. The NYPD has also instructed and trained informants to bait Muslim New
Yorkers into making inflammatory remarks, which are then reported to the police. One such
technique is known as “create and capture,” by which an informant “creates” a conversation with
a Muslim New Yorker about jihad or terrorism and then “captures” and reports that individual’s
response to the NYPD.
37. For example, in January 2012, a plainclothes NYPD officer recruited nineteen-
year-old Shamiur Rahman to serve as an informant following his third arrest on misdemeanor
drug charges. Rahman was instructed to use the “create and capture” technique.
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38. The NYPD paid Rahman as much as $1,500 a month to: monitor conversations in
mosques and among Muslim youths; listen for buzz words such as “jihad” and “revolution” and
report any “radical rhetoric”; photograph imams and congregants inside mosques; collect
congregants’ cell phone numbers; and collect and photograph the names of people attending
study groups and classes on Islam. Rahman provided all of this information to the NYPD, even
though none of it pertained to actual or suspected criminal activity of any kind.
39. For example, on the NYPD’s instructions, Rahman attended the 2012 Muslim
Day Parade in Manhattan and took pictures of people marching, which he sent to the NYPD.
The NYPD also assigned Rahman to spy on a February 23, 2012 lecture at the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, even though Rahman’s NYPD handler admitted to him that the police did
not believe the Muslim Student Association there had done anything wrong. Rahman’s NYPD
handler told him that the group should be monitored because its members were “religious
Muslims” and “the NYPD considers being Muslim a terrorism indicator.”
40. The NYPD continues to use officers and informants to monitor mosques,
sermons, imams, and congregants. The NYPD does not conduct similar profiling or surveillance
of individuals, houses of worship, or organizations affiliated with any religion other than Islam.
41. As part of the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program, the Intelligence Division
generated daily reports on innocent Muslim New Yorkers’ lives in New York City’s
neighborhoods, and the names of thousands of innocent New York City residents have been
placed in secret police files, even absent evidence that they engaged in criminal activity.
42. The information gathered by the Intelligence Division is kept both in an
intelligence database and on a standalone computer used to generate intelligence reports.
43. The highest-ranking New York City and NYPD officials have embraced the
Muslim Surveillance Program, defended it, and indicated that it will continue. Mayor
Bloomberg has stated that, “We’re doing the right thing. We will continue to do the right thing.”
He has asserted that criticism of the NYPD’s targeting of Muslims for surveillance was “just
misplaced” and “pandering.”
44. None of the NYPD’s suspicionless surveillance activities described here is
conducted against institutions or individuals belonging to any faith other than Islam, nor are they
conducted against the public at large.

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B. Plaintiffs’ Allegations
NYPD Surveillance of Imam Hamid Hassan Raza and Masjid Al-Ansar

45. Plaintiff Masjid Al-Ansar provides Muslim worshippers in Brooklyn, New York a
facility for communal prayer five times each day in accordance with the tenets of Islam, and is an
important daily gathering space for its congregants. In addition, Masjid Al-Ansar’s staff
provides congregants with religious education and counseling.
46. Since September of 2008, Plaintiff Hamid Hassan Raza has served as the imam at
Masjid Al-Ansar.
47. Imam Raza teaches and counsels children, youths, and adults about the Qur’an, its
teachings, and other religious topics. He also provides religious and personal counseling to
congregants. As imam, his goal is to make Masjid Al-Ansar an inclusive religious site and
community space, especially for its younger generation of congregants.
48. By the time Imam Raza became imam at Masjid Al-Ansar, he understood from
newspaper accounts and from conversations with other community members that NYPD officers
and informants were monitoring mosques and sermons in New York City.
49. Because Imam Raza was concerned about law enforcement surveillance, he began
recording on video the sermons he delivered. Imam Raza records his sermons because he is
afraid that NYPD officers or informants are monitoring what he says and will quote or record
some isolated part of a sermon, or take it out of context, and subject Imam Raza to further law
enforcement scrutiny, or worse.
50. Imam Raza’s belief that he and Masjid Al-Ansar were the subjects of law
enforcement surveillance increased markedly as a result of a visit to the mosque by two NYPD
officers in late 2009, which struck Imam Raza as odd. During this visit, the NYPD officers
asked Imam Raza for his driver’s license, which he provided to them. The officers copied down
some information from the license. They told Imam Raza that there was some confusion related
to his identification number, but did not explain what the confusion might be or why they needed
his driver’s license. The visit struck Imam Raza as especially unusual because the officers, who
identified themselves as being from the 62nd Precinct, were not in uniform.
51. After this encounter with the plainclothes NYPD officers, Imam Raza and Masjid
Al-Ansar took a number of actions out of concern that they were under NYPD surveillance. In
early 2010, Imam Raza substantially upgraded the video equipment he used to record his
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